The latest on the CBS documents

What infuriated me was today's sight of "journalists" from the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal delivering lectures on press ethics to various cable news anchors.

The Moonie Times prints lie after lie with impunity. Am I the only on who can recall how they tried to keep alive the "Kerry and the intern" story well after it was discredited? The Wall Street Journal printed rank, unverified rumors about Bill Clinton -- outrageous nonsense about murders and drug-dealing. The WSJ even put out a paperback book filled with this garbage.

Just today, we learn that the Republican Party has put out flyers claiming that Democrats want to ban the Bible!

If you're on the right, you are allowed to lie and lie and LIE. But when CBS believes a source too readily -- even though the thrust of their story remains unquestioned -- their mistake is treated like the horror to end all horrors.

The partisans will now crow like Peter Pan in victory, but a dispassionate look at the documents will reveal that the matter is far more mysterious than they -- or anyone else -- presumes.

First, the usual caveats, which I've now stated about a zillion times: 1. I would have strongly advised any newsman not to use any documents unless the provenance was clear, or unless the public received painstaking warnings. 2. I have never said that the documents are authentic but I do question the most commonly-heard theory as to how they were created.

The character shapes, when enlarged, simply do not match either Times New Roman or Palatino, the two suggested Word fonts. More important is the controversial superscript. Word places it in a very different place than is seen on the questioned documents. No-one has yet produced a similar "111th" using Word. Also, the uneven horizontal "lay" of the characters is consistent with typewritten origin, not with the use of a Word Processor.

So I feel that a period proportional-space typewriter was used. Does this mean the pages are necessarily authentic? No.

This Washington Post article raises many good points about formatting issues having nothing to do with fonts. I question the WP on a couple of matters -- what they call "kerning" looks to me like a possible accidental artifact of the copying process. However, I am persuaded that the WP is correct concerning such matters as the use of service number instead of a social security number, incorrect abbreviations, and the fact that August 18, 1972 was a Saturday.

That last error is particularly striking, since it is so easy to double-check dates nowadays; Microsoft includes a spiffy calendar program in every version of Windows. I find it hard to believe that a forger would get so many difficult details correct (Bush's street address, for one thing) yet mess up on an easily-checkable point like that.

Which leaves us with one of the more interesting conundrums in the history of hoaxed documents. (For what it may be worth, I researched a small volume on that very subject, a project to which I may yet return.)

These documents were typed, I feel, on a proportional-font machine of the period. They reflect information that Killian's secretary confirms as true. Tellingly, they do not contain much material not already on the public record -- thus, even if they had gone unquestioned, the damage to Bush would not have been noticeable. Yet they contain incorrect abbreviation and other errors that argue against authenticity.

Many believe Burkett to be the forger. Perhaps -- but one wonders whether Burkett would make errors involving non-standard abbreviations.

How to put all the pieces of this puzzle together? Only one scenario comes to mind.

I am coming to the provisional conclusion that these are not sloppy forgeries, as many like to think, but very clever ones. That is to say: Forgeries meant to arouse public attention. Forgeries meant to function as a cause celebre.

And ultimately, forgeries meant to be uncovered as such.